Surgery

Part I

Surgery means the performance of a surgical operation, or, sometimes, the room where it is performed.

Modern surgery is safe and efficient. It “removes the disease from the patient and puts it in a bottle”. It is a far cry from the “kitchen-table surgery” of the 19^th century or the crude operating rooms which Lord Lister, the father of modern surgery, sprayed with carbolic acid to get rid of germs. The development of surgery has gone hand in hand with improvements in hospital facilities, for the hospital is truly the surgeon’s workshop. Old-fashioned fears of surgery are warranted. In the operating room of modern hospital there are available the skills and facilities to make sure that the best and safest treatment can be given.

Minor surgery is also sometimes performed in a doctor’s office, and more serious surgery in so-called “free-standing” clinics. The patient comes in during the day. A few hours after his operation, he is permitted to leave. He does not stay overnight in the clinic – which is not a hospital.

Approximately 10,000,000 surgical operations a year are now performed in the United States. Only about 1 in 650 patients fails to survive the operation. This remarkable record has been achieved despite the fact that many patients come to the operating room severely injured by accident or desperately ill.

Why is surgery so safe today? Many factors contribute to this pleasant fact. They include the improved training of surgeons; the availability of new drugs that control infection and produce other important physiological effects; improvements in anesthesia; careful preoperative preparation and postoperative care of the patient; and better hospitals.

Modern surgery is performed under the best possible aseptic conditions, which means exclusion of every possible source of infection. This fact accounts for much of the ritual of the operating room – masks, gowns, “scrubbing up”, sterile instruments, sponges, towels, and the like.

Training to be a surgeon. Surgery is one of the best-defined specialties in medical practice and the surgeon must undergo rigorous training and apprenticeship before he can ply his art in an accredited hospital. Surgical specialists put 5 or 6 years of surgical residency in a hospital. Then, following rigorous examinations, they may qualify as Fellows of the American College of Surgeons and diplomats of specialty boards in the various branches of surgery. A good surgeon is far more than a pair of trained hands, important as a gentle, deft touch on tissues actually is. He also has the priceless intellectual quality of “surgical judgment”, which tells him when and how to operate.

Preoperative and postoperative care. Better care of patients before and after operation has played a major role in making surgery safer. Laboratory tests reveal the state of the patient’s body chemistry. Preoperative deficiencies in proteins, vitamins, minerals, and sugars can be corrected by intravenous infusions. If necessary, blood transfusions can be given before operation – although it is more common to give them after operation to overcome blood loss and to combat shock.

Other preoperative medication usually includes sedative and narcotic drugs, given so the patient comes into the operating room in a relaxed, semiconscious state. These drugs are also given to control pain after operation; addiction does not occur in the short space of time needed to recuperate from a surgical operation.

Antibiotics to control and prevent infection are prescribed both before and after operation. Surgeons now make every effort to get their patients out of bed as soon as possible after operation; often the next day, sometimes a week or longer.

Занятие 12.

Тема: Surgical Diseases. Operation. Acute Appendicitis.

Грамматика: Absolute Participial Construction. Objective Infinitive Construction.

Время изучения темы: 3 часа

Цель: Научиться переводить тексты по специальности; вести беседу на базе изученных текстов; осуществлять профессионально-ориентированное общение, пользуясь изученным лексико-грамматическим материалом

Задачи:

1) выучить и тренировать активную лексику

2) тренировать грамматические модели

3) тренировка навыков аналитического и информативного чтения, перевода, устного высказывания

4) научиться применять полученные знания на практике

I. Информативное чтение: Text “Abdominal Pain”